Alexander Hamilton: The Bad Guy Everyone Loves

That’s heavy revisionist spin by an associate of Lew Rockwell, Tom DiLorenzo. His depictions of Hamilton, Jefferson and Marshall are not accurate.

Young Alexander Hamilton wrote most of the Federalist Papers, in close collaboration with James Madison and John Jay (who wrote the rest of them). They are, to this day, the best reference we have to the original intent of the Framers for the interpretation of the Constitution. In the Federalist Papers, Hamilton, Madison & Jay argue compellingly for the (then-proposed) new Constitution, and for a strictly limited, constitutionally circumscribed federal government. The first stop for anyone who aspires to be a serious student of American history and the American Constitution is to read The Federalist Papers, by Hamilton, Madison & Jay.

Jefferson, OTOH, while undeniably a man of extraordinarily genius, was strikingly naive w/r/t economics. He actually opposed the development of American industry. He wanted America to be a simple agrarian utopia, the better to protect the character of American citizens from moral corruption. He wrote:

“The political economists of Europe have established it as a principle, that every state should endeavour to manufacturer for itself; and this principle, like many others, we transfer to America. … But we have an immensity of land courting the industry of the husbandman. Is it best then that all our citizens should be employed in its improvement, or that one half should be called off from that to exercise manufacturers and handicraft arts for the other? … Corruption of morals in the mass of cultivators is a phenomenon of which no age nor nation has furnished an example. It is the mark sent on those who, not looking up to heaven, to their own toil and industry, as does the husbandman, for their subsistence, depend for it on casualties and caprice of customers. Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition. … While we have land to labour, then, let us never wish to see our citizens occupied at a work-bench or twirling a distaff. … For the general operations of manufacture let our workshops remain in Europe. It is better to carry provisions and materials to workmen there than bring them to the provisions and materials and with them their manners and principles. The mobs of great cities add just so much to the support of pure government as sores do to the strength of the human body. It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigour. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution.” -Thomas Jefferson

As for Lew Rockwell, he is a nutcase. Here’s a saved copy of his main web page, promoting a “9-11 Truther” nut’s claim that the 9-11-2001 attacks on were actually the product of a vast conspiracy led by President George W. Bush:
http://archive.is/7sh2t#selection-403.0-411.1

Here’s a review of DiLorenzo’s book:
http://financehistoryandpolicy.blogspot.com/2009/03/review-of-hamiltons-curse-by-thomas-j.html